Meet the billionaire whisperer fighting New York's corner

Times

2 days ago

The maître d' of Pershing Square, a restaurant opposite Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan, knows exactly who I am meeting when I call to confirm a reservation under Kathryn Wylde.
'Oh, Kathy? We love Kathy!'
Wylde, 79, is a regular at the classic American bistro, where she is spotted by other customers who visit our table. It is one of her favourite lunch spots for when she is not being summoned to the more exclusive haunts frequented by Manhattan chief executives around Park Avenue. 'I always know somebody here,' she says, surveying the busy floor.
Wylde is a renowned power broker in the city, who has spent more than four decades bridging divides between the billionaires running New York's biggest corporations and the political elites through her work at the Partnership for New York City, a consortium of 350 big companies, including banks, law firms, private equity firms and real estate developers.
She first joined the partnership in the 1980s to run the housing development arm that secured private financing to build tens of thousands of homes in deprived neighbourhoods. In the 1990s she worked with Henry Kravis, co-founder of private equity firm KKR, and Jerry Speyer, co-founder of real estate developer Tishman Speyer, to start an investment fund that helped kickstart the digital economy in New York.
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As chief executive of the partnership in 2001, when the 9/11 terror attacks tore through the city, Wylde quickly developed a blueprint in eight weeks for how to ensure New York could continue as a financial capital that was hailed as 'the Bible' by the Bush administration.
Before ordering, we discuss the previous night's harrowing mass shooting at an office building on Park Avenue. Four people were killed by a gunman at the New York headquarters of Blackstone, KPMG, the National Football League and building landlord Rudin Management.
Wylde was passing the building as office workers were coming out with their hands up at around 6.30pm, saying 'go back, go back, there's an active shooter'. She walked to the next subway station and got on a train.
'New Yorkers are used to dealing with the unexpected, and unfortunately, we're used to dealing with the tragic,' she says.
It is only seven months since Brian Thompson, chief executive of United Healthcare, was shot dead outside a hotel in midtown.
Does she feel like the city is becoming more dangerous? 'I would point out that both of these events were non-New Yorkers carrying guns from other places, from other states.
'New York has relatively strict gun control laws. And it's just a shame that the country doesn't have the same and other states don't have the same.'
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She says she has recently been surveying security chiefs at New York corporations and landlords in the city, and most said they felt comfortable with security provisions in place. 'This happened in spite of having those very high protocols,' she says.
'I don't see what else they could have done. It's one of those things where, you know, you can take all the precautions in the world, but you can't stop premeditated murder.'
We both eschew alcohol in favour of tap water, and I follow her recommendation of the Waldorf salad with poached chicken, in an attempt to progress my New York culinary education.
I discover that Wylde is an unlikely billionaire whisperer. Originally from Wisconsin, she had been the first female editor of her college paper and wanted to become a journalist, but when she entered the workforce in 1968, the Chicago Sun-Times told her she could start as a typist and work her way up to the society page. 'I wasn't interested.'
She moved to Brooklyn to work in community relations for a hospital, and met her husband, Wilfredo Lugo, a Puerto Rican agitator who was then protesting for more support for the low-income and Puerto Rican community.
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A turning point came in 1981 when David Rockefeller, the head of Chase Manhattan Bank, appointed her to create a programme to build home ownership opportunities for the middle classes who had been leaving the city in droves with the decline of the manufacturing economy.
'He was the premier business, civic and philanthropic leader of the city,' Wylde says. 'And I was able to build a relationship with him.'
She described him as a very humble, curious man, who wanted blue collar workers to be able to stay in the city and have security. 'I was able, through him, to see the bridge between great wealth and power, and empathy for the needs of the broader community.'
She believes he inspired the next generation of philanthropic business leaders, including Speyer, Kravis, Michael Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon. 'These were all people that knew him, respected his style of leadership and philanthropy, and embraced it.'
Wylde says she has never wanted to live in Manhattan. She enjoys the anonymity of Brooklyn, she says. To do her job, she also thinks you need to understand that New York is a 'bottom-up, not a top-down city'.
'The city is full of very strong opinions, and to be an effective advocate and communicator on issues affecting the city, you need to have experienced what life is like for most New Yorkers,' she says.
Living in the Bay Ridge neighbourhood in Brooklyn helped her perceive that Zohran Mamadani, the Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, was a serious contender before any of Manhattan's business leaders, she says.
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'In the neighbourhoods, it was just obvious where the excitement was. He brought out 170,000 first-time voters in a primary. The polls didn't reflect this, because the polls surveyed people who vote regularly. So they missed the whole movement to new, young voters.'
When asked by partnership members how they missed the rise of Mamdani, she tells them 'they were underestimating the extent to which financial insecurity is the main theme in most people's lives'.
She adds: 'The majority of New Yorkers, when polled, say they have the fear they'll have to leave the city because they can't afford to live here. And he spoke to that fear … that's what people responded to. And people who don't feel financially insecure didn't get it.'
Does she think he will win? 'I do,' Wylde says. 'It is highly likely. He's the democratic nominee and he captures the imagination … like Obama did.'
Does she want him to win? 'I don't take sides', she says, diplomatically. 'We have to work with whoever wins.'
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She disagrees with Mamdani's view that we should not have billionaires. 'I would say that they [billionaires] are undervalued in terms of their contributions to the city in particular,' she says. 'I think we shouldn't be focusing on people who have done well … but we should be focusing on how more people can do well.'
However, she believes many of his policies are flawed, including promises to freeze the rent on affordable housing, which she believes would just mean developers stop building; or higher corporate taxes that she believes would only exacerbate the affordability problem, 'because those tax increases will be passed along to consumers in many cases'.
Wylde has been preoccupied in recent weeks chairing private meetings between Mamdani and New York's business community.
Real estate leaders are the 'most concerned' because of the power the mayor has over land use and zoning. The New York Jewish community is also particularly worried about the potential to have an anti-Israel mayor at a time of rising antisemitism, when they feel 'more dependent than ever on having a Jewish homeland', Wylde says.
Other chief executives were 'relieved that he's smart and seemed willing to listen'. However, she says she doesn't think they will vote for him and 'the biggest concern is his lack of experience in management'.
Wylde says the highlights of her career have all been crises, from the financial crisis and responding to September 11 to the pandemic, when she has been able to help provide the communication link between business and government.
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She says her own ambition has always been around what she can accomplish over what her next step or job title will be, which is why she has been at the partnership for 43 years. 'It's probably the best platform one could have over the long term to accomplish the most,' she says.
Wylde has announced that she will retire from the partnership next June, when she hopes to spend more time with her husband, who lives in Puerto Rico with seven rescue dogs and 19 cats. Her husband 'certainly didn't love my life in New York,' she says. 'He's Puerto Rican. And he was happy to go back to Puerto Rico'.
However, she says she will never leave New York entirely. 'It's the most productive economy, where everyone is basically outcomes-oriented,' she says. 'It's real people trying to do real stuff — or have real outcomes, not just talk about them.'
As we wait for the check, Bruce Crystal, the maître d' of the restaurant, slides into the booth next to Wylde for an intense discussion about the likely strategies of competing candidates in the mayoral race. 'He has all the gossip,' Wylde says. One suspects that she does too.